Putting two and two together

It's lunchtime and I'm looking at the view for the first time and remembering what people have told me.

Looking to the left of me I have a great view of the valley. I went looking for a Geocache near a swing bridge (Cowling Bridge according to the map), and I can actually see it from here. I can also make out the farm with the big, utidy and (perhaps understandably) unfriendly signs telling people to stick to the public footpath. The map says it's Airedale house farm. Anyway its the most prominent feature of my view and it's nice to put a name to a pile of stone.

From my window, I can make out the western tip of Silsden, the Leeds Liverpool canal, the swing bridge and the farm beyond. I can even make out the boats moored on the farm side of the canal.

For those of you in urban offices I may post a picture to make you jealous.

Famous Five Mark 2.

In the news today, Disney have announced they're making a new cartoon series "Famous Five - on the case" inspired by, if not actually based on the Enid Blyton. This is in essence a brand new series loosely based on the premise of the books, rather than a simple update.

However it has still got the Famous Five society and Daily Telegraph readers knickers in a twist. It's seen as a bad move, damaging a classic and leading people to associate the originals with, shock-horror, multiculturalism!

Disney recons that it'll remain true to the spirit of the originals. While that remains to be true, as someone who devoured the books as a child I would contest that the spirit of the originals has very little to do with any of the tacit racism that went way over my eight year old head.

I mean seriously, people have been making derivative works for centuries. James Bond Junior, Kiss Me Kate and My Fair Lady spring to mind. Few have tarnished the reputations, and some have become classics in their own right. If it's good enough for Ian Flemming, Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, it should be good enough for Enid Blyton.

One bus and eight trains...

...and we're home.

We had a great time. Seville was lovely, really nice. We took our time over 5 days to see the sights, sit in cafes and take in the atmosphere. You can't do Seville on a tour-bus in a day, you miss so much of the detail between the main sights.

So our public transport odyssey.

Starting at our hotel, we got the C1 bus to the station, followed by train 1, AVE to Madrid Attocha. We broke the journey here (but our bags remained in left luggage), to wander up to the main square and the palace (Madrid was a bit of a let down after Seville), then took train 2the Line 1 Metro to Madrid Charmartin, and then train 3 the Train Hotel overnight to Paris Gare d'Austerlitz. Train 4 wasMetro 5 to Gare du Nord, where our bags had another mini-holiday in left luggage. Trouble was it was a Sunday and we could not change our tickets (or we asked at the wrong window) so we had a few boring hours wandering round Montmatre and avoiding having our portraits taken.

But soon we were on the Eurostar (train 5) and back at shiny new London St Pancras. We then got the NXEC to Leeds (train 6) which arrived 10 minutes early. We sprinted across to platform 1 to get the Airedale line to Shipley (train 7) then an unscheduled eighth train to Steeton.
The Airedale line guard seemed a little taken aback at our response to his kind offer of assistance with our luggage ("you're alright this is the eighth train since Seville").

It sounds hellish when I write it, but really it was fun and our holiday wasn't over until we walked through the door of our house.

Would we do it again. Well, yes, but we'd try and avoid kicking our heels in Paris if possible.